Industry

he aerospace industry makes and services aircraft, spacecraft, and associated equipment. Aerospace manufacturers make airliners, airfreight carriers, warplanes, helicopters, and general aviation airplanes. They also build guided missiles, engines, and other equipment, including electronics and air traffic control systems. The industry’s space activities include making commercial telecommunications satel­lites, navigation satellites, and science satellites. Aerospace companies build and adapt launch vehicles, such as multistage rockets, the Space Shuttle, and the ground systems that control spaceflights. The industry also takes care of the overhaul, rebuilding, and conver­sion of air and space vehicles.

Industry Overview

The United States has the world’s biggest aerospace manufacturing sector. Its biggest customer is the federal govern­ment. Military airplanes, missiles, and other equipment are ordered by the U. S. Department of Defense. The main purchaser of space vehicles (satellites and launch vehicles) is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), also a federal agency.

Passenger and cargo-carrying air­craft form the biggest sector of the civil part of the industry. These planes are supplied to air transportation busi­nesses, such as airlines and airfreight businesses. Smaller businesses buy air­craft of many kinds. Satellites are sold to television companies and other commu­nications businesses. The aerospace manufacturing industry also supplies airports and space centers with all kinds of service equipment—everything, in fact, that keeps airplanes and space­craft flying.

Every large aerospace corporation works with a network of smaller compa­nies. These businesses supply all types of components, from weapons and avionics to airliner seats and carpets. On major projects, corporations often cooperate with partners to cut costs and share expertise. For example, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), which makes the Airbus airliner, was originally a consortium of British, French, Spanish, and German companies.

U. S. aerospace companies are pri­vately owned. In some other nations, however, the government controls the aerospace industry. Before the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, all Soviet military and civil aircraft were built by the state-controlled aerospace sector. There are other examples of national aerospace firms, such as Saab of Sweden. Government industries, such as those in Israel and China, usually build airplanes for their armed forces.